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An annual citizen satisfaction survey on the Calgary Police Service should be expanded to provide a more accurate gauge of the force’s performance, according to a local criminologist. Mount Royal University’s Doug King says the poll by the Calgary police commission puts a focus on crime but doesn’t really ask the public about the “other very important things that police officers do, like respond to injury accidents or assist people in medical distress.”

Calgary police updated media Thursday afternoon on the progress of their investigation into the disappearance of five-year-old Nathan O’Brien and Alvin and Kathryn Liknes. The three family members have been missing for 11 days after vanishing from the Liknes’ Parkhill home on June 30.

Calgary Herald RCMP and Calgary police spoke to media Tuesday afternoon about the ongoing investigation into the suspicious. disappearance of five-year-old Nathan O’Brien and his grandparents. It’s the first time they’ve spoken about the case since Saturday. Here are five things we learned:

Alvin and Kathy Liknes were planning a major change in their lives. The couple had spent the weekend selling what they owned in Calgary, a friend said, and were moving to a condo they had bought in Mexico.

The speedy arrest of Matt de Grood in connection with the killing of five people at a Brentwood house party and charging him with the most serious crime in the criminal code — first-degree murder — are ample evidence the Calgary police homicide investigation is thorough and impartial, a spokesman for the department said Thursday.

Alberta police chiefs have put forward a controversial proposal asking the province for the power to seize vehicles and suspend licences of excessive speeders — but Calgary’s police chief and Alberta’s solicitor general don’t support the idea. The measures would apply for seven days, and the seizures and suspensions would be at the discretion of the police officer whenever someone is caught going more than 50 km/h over the posted speed limit.But Solicitor General Jonathan Denis said the government is not interested.“This is not something we are considering at this time,” Denis said on Monday.Denis said he hasn’t seen any evidence of the effectiveness of the measures. “We haven’t seen any evidence either way,” he said.Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec have already passed similar legislation.Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht proposed the resolution at the June 13 meeting of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police.“Our focus is not on mom and pop speeding a little bit; our focus is on prolific offenders who are going at extreme speeds,” Knecht said Monday. “If you are going 50 km/h (over the posted limit), that’s considered an excessive speed.”

An officer shot and seriously wounded an occupant of a car that hit two elderly pedestrians as it fled from police in the city’s northwest on Tuesday afternoon. The incident unfolded in the parking lot of a Bank of Montreal branch on Crowfoot Way N.W., but investigators said it didn’t involve an attempt to rob the bank.

Calgary police say the slaughter of a chicken at the Alberta College of Art and Design as part of an art project was ill-conceived — but not a crime. Police said they have finished their investigation and no criminal charges will be laid in connection to the incident Thursday when a chicken’s neck was slit in the cafeteria in front of other students.

The days of clashes between neo-Nazis and anti-racism activists appear to be over with organizers and police expecting a peaceful rally Saturday. There was no organized white pride rally last year in Calgary, and now with the most prominent members of Calgary’s white supremacist community behind bars, organizers and police hope to avoid the violent confrontations of years past.

The man at the core of a YouTube video that seems to show a violent takedown by several security guards at Chinook Centre says he’s hired a lawyer. Dan Doussept, 31, will be represented by civil litigation and personal injury lawyer Todd Wytrychowski, Doussept told the Herald on Wednesday.

City police have approached the man involved in a struggle with security guards outside a Calgary mall, seeking to investigate after a cellphone video of the incident was widely-circulated online. But the passerby who shot the Youtube posting — which appears to show a guard punching Dan Doussept, who was pinned to the ground by several other officers — claims police that attended the scene Saturday night had little interest in pursuing the matter.

Speeding drivers and the cameras that catch them are delivering a forecast $4-million revenue surplus to Calgary Police this year — record-shattering fine proceeds that have attracted Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s eye, the Herald has learned.

Police say they need to re-evaluate how they respond after a call to the city’s first suspected bath salts case went awry when an officer was hurt while struggling with a man believed to be high on the drug.

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